Jan Nickelson shared these photos of Bear Butte, a favorite of hikers for its spiritual significance.
Bear Butte
Tag: black hills
Iron Mountain Road
Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2006 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.
The average South Dakotan likes black coffee, thick steaks and straight roads. But we make an exception for Iron Mountain Road, one of the most crooked 17 miles you’ll ever drive.
Iron Mountain Road is part of a highway trilogy–along with Custer State Park’s Wildlife Loop and the Needles Highway. The three together are called the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway, a route that was proclaimed one of America’s top 10 scenic drive by the Society of American Travel Writers.
All three roads (70 miles total) are must-drives, but Iron Mountain is a lengthy, two-lane demonstration that road construction can truly be an art form. Norbeck, who is almost every historian’s all-time favorite South Dakota politician, helped select the route in 1933, as Mount Rushmore was being carved.
Norbeck, then a 63-year-old U.S. senator, personally explored Iron Mountain, looking for views that best showed off the Black Hills landscapes and the emerging faces at Rushmore. Others wanted the road to skirt the peak, but Norbeck insisted on scenery over economy. Already in poor health when he was scouting the path, he died just three years later.
His road squeezes through three stone tunnels, spirals down three pigtail bridges and winds round and round to the 5,445-foot summit where a small parking lot allows visitors to get out from behind the wheel and enjoy a panoramic view of the mountains, including Mount Rushmore.
“I was there as a boy when they were building it,” said Bob Hayes, a retired mining engineer.”They hired miners to do much of the work because it involved drilling and blasting. My father knew the miners, so we would sometimes go watch. I remember being in the tunnels before they were finished. They looked like cave openings.”
Hayes recalled that the workers didn’t seem to appreciate the importance of their task.”Like Mount Rushmore, they weren’t that excited until later. They thought it was just a job. It was later that they realized they’d done something great.”
Although Norbeck gets much deserved credit for the highway because he brought both the political leadership and vision, many others were involved. Gutzon Borglum, chief sculptor of the four presidential faces, saw Iron Mountain Road as”an integral part of the memorial,” according to Gilbert Fite, author of Mount Rushmore.
Also deeply involved was C. C. Gideon, a self-taught builder and designer whose handprints can be found on major projects throughout the southern Black Hills. Gideon built the Game Lodge and designed the artist’s studio at Mount Rushmore after Borglum waste-basketed drawings by the National Park Service architects.
Gideon and Norbeck were a good team; Gideon had the ability to get Norbeck’s dreams not only to paper, but even to completion. The best examples are the pigtail bridges of Iron Mountain Road. The two men decided, after numerous trips on horseback and afoot over the mountain, that the road must be tunneled through the mountain on the way to the peak. Their ideas clashed with all practical principles for road construction in the 1930s.
Finally, the pigtail bridge concept was devised, but state engineers wanted the supports built of concrete and steel. Norbeck envisioned a rustic look that would accent the forest; he turned to Gideon, who designed the bridges of massive wood posts and steel straps.
Gideon’s granddaughter, Marilyn Oakes, operates Buffalo Rock Lodge Bed & Breakfast with her husband, Art, near the south end of the road.”Grandpa was a humble and quiet man,” she said.”I didn’t grow up in South Dakota, but we came back every summer for vacations and got to know him. In my heart of hearts, I see those two guys [her grandpa and the senator] riding on horseback in the Hills, laughing and planning and slapping each other on the back as they agreed on where to take the road.”
Marilyn’s guests at the lodge get an insider’s history of the road that will take them to Rushmore.”The first thing I tell them is that it is narrow and winding to force people to slow down and enjoy the beauty,” Oakes says.”They could have gone around the mountain very easily but they chose this route.”
Now Entering Big Pocket Country
Not for a second did I think the young woman was flirting when she smiled at me and said, “Hey … great pockets.” At a glance I knew her to be a true admirer of such things. She wore a Big Yankee jacket with four roomy, snap-button outer pockets, and undoubtedly some interior ones, too. The two of us stood in line waiting to pay for gas at a Black Hills convenience store. When she spotted me, my entire forearm had disappeared into my own coat’s ten-gallon breast pocket, digging for my checkbook.
We chatted a couple minutes about big pockets, about how I once owned a Big Yankee coat myself. Unfortunately, I abused it, stuffing the generous pockets so full of flotsam and jetsam that the seams ripped. Now I buy cheaper jackets, figuring I’ll destroy the pockets by overuse in short order. 1 won’t consider a jacket that doesn’t let me transport a couple sandwiches, an apple, road maps, a 400-page novel and several note pads.
We discussed, too, how so many Black Hills folks have big pockets — not to be confused with deep pockets. Some patently Black Hills objects I’ve seen stuffed into those pockets are chunks of native alabaster for sculpting, pop bottles converted to bum lamb feeders and hundreds (yes, hundreds) of dollars of quarters destined for Deadwood slots.
Maybe other places come close to our pocket penchant. Cape Cod and the Great Lakes, for example, are big-time big pocket regions, yet they don’t surpass us. Florida fishing guides and guys who sell cheap watches on Chicago streets use big pockets vocationally, but often change to other fashions off-duty.
Because winters here last so long, there’s a real danger of becoming addicted to big coat pockets. A day comes in March or April that’s entirely too warm for winter jackets, but we don them anyway, because for six months they’ve stored our keys, cell phones, cash, appointment books and half a dozen other vital possessions. This pocket reliance is embarrassing, but thanks to a Wyoming mountain range that often affects western South Dakota weather, we’ve got a ready excuse: “Well, sure it’s 60 degrees now. But there’s snow in the Big Horns. It could move our way, and if it does, it’ll be here fast.”
The snow-in-the-Big Horns rationalization holds up until June. Then comes the season of coping without big pockets, of feeling half naked, of reaching the end of check-out lines only to find we’ve got no checkbook, of leaving car keys in restaurants and in friends’ homes.
Sadly, big pocket addiction doesn’t spare children. Most of us who have raised kids in the Black Hills recall telling them, on balmy spring mornings, to exchange their parkas for windbreakers. So off to school they go, only to call home an hour later. Guess where the lunch ticket is? Or science project, gym socks, overdue library book, or small woodwind instrument?
Fall, a season big pocket addicts embrace long before the leaves turn, is always humbling. The first day we grab heavy coats and open the tent flap pockets, we always find signs of unfinished business — things we should have gotten to in spring, before warm weather ambushed us. One fall I found photos I forgot to duplicate for friends, burned-out Christmas tree bulbs I meant to replace, $120 worth of unsold tickets to a charitable function, an uncompleted contest entry form and a ruined computer disk. I’m getting better. There were no unpaid bills. And it’s been three years since I’ve left food all summer in my big pockets.
Editor’s Note: Black Hills correspondent Paul Higbee resides in Spearfish with his wife, Janet. This column originally appeared in the March/April 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call us at 800-456-5117.
Governor’s Snowmobile Ride
I spoke to Diane Hiles of De Smet yesterday while she and her husband, Greg, headed to the Hills for the 32nd annual Governor’s Snowmobile Ride. Hiles is the secretary of the Town and Country Snowdrifters Snowmobile Club, hosts of this year’s ride. The event takes place at Hardy Camp, a Forest Service station in Lead. Winter weather has been unseasonably warm but Hiles says the trails are in excellent condition for the 200 people expected to attend. She and Greg were able to snowmobile the Black Hills trails last week to test them.
The ride starts at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday with brunch, registration and introduction of special guests. Hiles says Governor Dennis Daugaard and his advisory council are expected to attend, as well as U.S. House Representative Kristi Noem. Invitations are extended to all state legislators and at least 12 plan to participate from Sioux Falls, Baltic, Mitchell, Big Stone City, Rapid City, Spearfish and Lead. SDSA provides snowmobiles for the invited guests with help from Yamaha Motor Corporation and Arctic Cat.
The large crew of snowmobilers will split up with experienced riders designated as group leaders through the Black Hills trails maintained by Hardy Camp. The day culminates with a meal and social gathering for riders to visit about their experiences of the day. “The ride was started by the South Dakota Snowmobile Association (SDSA) as a way to showcase the trail system in the Black Hills,” says Hiles. “SDSA works for the good of the snowmobiling sport, trying to make sure the trail system continues to operate both East River and West River.”
Racing Through the Black Hills
My job is to promote South Dakota as a travel destination. I do that with photography, but not always through means you’d expect.
My use of photography as a promotional tool has taken some interesting turns over the years, one of which is video gaming. As a relaxing pastime, I play car racing video games and that took a creative turn when I began”painting” race cars for the game”NASCAR Racing 2003″.
Other players of the game can download the cars to use in the game at www.racingrafix.com, a website run by an online friend of mine in Texas.
After painting hundreds of cars, many with South Dakota-related sponsor logos, inspiration struck about making an even bigger splash in the video gaming world. I reached out to a race track builder. Jeff (I don’t even know his full name) in Chicago creates new tracks for those of us who race in the game.
A few email discussions determined that my photographs of South Dakota scenery could make a great backdrop for some fun tracks.”Rushmore Scenic Byway” was born with photos of the Black Hills landscape forming the virtual horizon, including Mount Rushmore, the Needles, Harney Peak and Crazy Horse Memorial. Using Photoshop, I blended several photos into one extra-long panoramic image that encircles the race track, so no matter where a driver turns he sees the Black Hills around him.
We decided to give the track a 1950s feel, so I included buildings and billboards for tourist attractions of that era. Racers negotiate through or past pigtail bridges, tunnels, the 1880 Train, Dinosaur Park and signs for Reptile Gardens, Sitting Bull Caverns, Thunderhead Underground Falls, and more.
“Rushmore Scenic Byway” was a smashing success, with over 1,000 downloads spreading the South Dakota message across the world. We quickly began planning a sequel –“Badlands Byway.” I shot a 360-degree panoramic photo in Badlands National Park for the horizon in this track, which worked well.
With some leftover ideas from”Rushmore Scenic Byway,” we completed a South Dakota track trilogy with”Black Hills Backroads,” this time in black and white. We replaced the completed Mount Rushmore with an under-construction version and removed most of the billboards to drop the timeline of the setting back to the 1940s.
Both”Badlands Byway” and”Black Hills Backroads” have been well-received with hundreds of downloads. The success of these projects has prompted me to approach other video game developers about including South Dakota in more games. We’ll see if anyone bites and how my photos might be utilized in the future.
If you are still a bit confused about all of this, maybe a video featuring all three tracks in action will help.
Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.
Wild Bill and Calamity Jane: A Love Story?
We’ve all heard the stories about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane being more than just friends. But of course we know better. James McLaird, a longtime history professor at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, debunked the myth pretty forcefully in his book Wild Bill and Calamity Jane: Deadwood Legends. He proved the two knew each other for only a brief period in Deadwood, and were certainly nothing more than casual acquaintances.
But that’s not what The Days of’75-’76 would have you believe. The 1915 silent film was the first movie to link the two romantically. Audiences haven’t seen the film in decades, but it reappears this weekend, the opening of the Historical Film Series at the Black Hills Roundhouse in Lead.
Scholars at the University of Nebraska discovered the film in their archives over a decade ago. They were unable to identify the locations or characters portrayed, so they contacted Wayne Paananen in Lead. Paananen owns the largest private collection of historical films in the state, and was able to piece the story together.
The Hart brothers, filmmakers from Omaha, shot the picture in the Black Hills, Badlands and Fort Robinson in Nebraska. Its run time is about 70 minutes, much longer than other films produced 100 years ago. And it’s clear the directors did not strive for historical accuracy.”It takes tremendous liberties,” Paananen says.”For example, Jack McCall vies with Wild Bill for the affection of Calamity Jane early in the film.”
It includes typical Western scenes depicting Indian uprisings and stagecoach robberies. One of the final scenes shows Jack McCall on trial in Yankton for the murder of Wild Bill.”It is truly a real piece of Americana, not only portraying the true Western format of filming, but it was done at a time when movies were the rage,” he says.”It was a totally new form of entertainment.”
Paananen says the film is exciting for two reasons. First, you get a feel for the filming techniques of the day.”When they had an indoor shot, they only built a three sided set with no roof, and they used all natural light and shot from the open side,” he says.”That was really a great technique, except in this film when they are supposed to be indoors the tablecloth and papers on table are blowing around because of the wind.”
Audiences also get to see the Deadwood of a century ago. A scene at Mount Moriah Cemetery shows the second of two statues that once stood over Wild Bill’s gravesite. Souvenir hunters regularly chipped pieces from the monuments.”You can see it’s already been attacked by tourists and starting to look ugly,” he says. It was eventually removed and is now displayed at the Adams Museum in Deadwood.
The Days of’75-’76 screens at 7 p.m., tonight through Saturday. Future films include Homestake: The Legend and Legacy (Feb. 15-18), World War II films (March 14-17, and a film festival and competition open to amateur filmmakers in April and May. Information on each film and the upcoming festival can be found at www.bhroundhouse.com.
Explorers of an Unseen World
Editor’s Note: Jan & Herb Conn were inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2011. Herb died Feb. 1, 2012 at age 91. They were featured in this story, revised from the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.
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| Jan & Herb Conn discovered miles of passageways and chambers in Jewel Cave. This Jewel Cave National Monument photo shows them near Treasure Aisle in 1961. |
Over 60 years after Jan and Herb Conn found the Black Hills on a cross-country rock climbing trip, they still lived here deep in the forest. The rustic cabin they built sits west of Custer State Park, and from their property you can gaze at the granite Needles’ formations, including spectacular Cathedral Spires.
They filled many days with long hikes to Black Hills landmarks they named. They were detached from the wide world in some ways, but are certainly not naÔve about it, and they didn’t come to South Dakota to hide from the world. They’ll live in Black Hills history forever as the spelunkers who proved Jewel Cave to be among the world’s largest. Both are published writers. Herb used to dangle from the Rushmore heads each fall, doing annual maintenance on the four faces. Jan’s musical play, Run to Catch a Pine Cone, has been performed throughout the country. Fellow climber and cave explorer Dwight Deal, in the foreword to a book the Conns authored about Jewel Cave, called them simply, “two of the most remarkable human beings I have ever met.”
Herb grew up in New York state and Jan in the Washington, D.C., area. Not long after they fell in love with one another, they fell in love also with rock climbing, which they learned on the Potomac River cliffs. “When you’re learning to climb, it’s handy to have a river below you,” noted Jan.
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| Herb Conn dangled from the faces on Mount Rushmore each fall to do maintenance work. (U.S. Dept. of Interior photo) |
They married in 1944 and Herb made good money as a civilian electrician for the Navy during World War II. The young couple tucked most of those dollars away for post-war, transcontinental rock climbing treks. Careers, they decided, would be sacrificed for outdoor adventuring; they’d seek out seasonal odd jobs to pay their bills. A seemingly innate belief that they could do most anything served them well. For example, Jan once answered a help-wanted ad for an experienced Venetian blind assembler. She got the job and then got busy at home disassembling and re-assembling a set of blinds. When she reported to work the next day she was, indeed, experienced.
They took seasonal tourism jobs from New England ski resorts to an Arizona dude ranch, “until we got tired of smiling at people,” Jan recalled. Returning east from California in 1947, driving a panel truck the Conns describe as “the world’s first RV,” they decided to check into climbing challenges at Devil’s Tower. Much impressed by Devil’s Tower and the rest of the Black Hills, they nonetheless were unprepared for their first glimpse of the Needles. “If you’re a rock climber, you won’t find anyplace better,” said Jan. In 1949 they bought 20 acres adjacent to the Needles. A couple years after that they’d built a rustic shelter on the place.
Rock climbers in the 1950s were far less common than today. If you’ve got vacation photos from that era showing people scaling the Needles, it’s a good bet the subjects are Jan and Herb. They never guessed, up there in the wind, where their next adventure would lead them.
By 1959 Jan and Herb had been scaling rocky heights for 17 years, and were supporting their climbing addiction by creating customized leather and wood products. That year they broke routine and went spelunking with friend Dwight Deal at nearby Jewel Cave. For the next 22 years they explored Jewel almost weekly.
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| Jan & Herb during their spelunking days. |
Spelunking, they found, put to use some of their well-developed climbing techniques, required tremendous stamina, and took a toll on knees and elbows. Compact and strong, both Conns could wriggle through spaces sometimes only eight inches wide for long distances. They came to live for the magic words, “It goes!” meaning they’d found a passage extending deep into the black unknown.
Jewel Cave, it turned out, goes farther than anyone dreamed 40 years ago. Today it ranks as the world’s third longest cavern system, with known passages extending 110 miles. Located west of Custer, Jewel was designated a national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. In 1959 it was still considered a small cave, measured by yards, not miles.
‘There was talk then that it wasn’t up to national monument standards,” said Jan. “I think maybe the Park Service was happy to have us explore, so they would know what they were getting rid of.”
The Park Service granted the Conns a special use permit, meaning Jan and Herb Conn could volunteer all the time they wanted exploring, as long as they also mapped their routes. Then the Park Service sat back in awe as the duo, accompanied by Deal and a series of other capable partners, filed reports describing a dizzyingly complex network of passageways, lofts, and chambers.
Jan and Herb named their finds: Mighty Tight Street, Long Winded Passage, Carnegie Hall, Torture Chamber, Hell’s Half Acre, The Other Half Acre, Black and Blue Grottoes, to name a few. Santa Claus Chimney they discovered one Christmas Eve. Benny’s Vault echoed like a sound effect they remembered from Jack Benny’s radio show. Within a couple years they’d found big, scenic chambers perfect for public tours; problem was, it took seasoned spelunkers a good ten hours to reach those chambers from the cave’s entrance. The Conns helped the Park Service calculate where to drill a vertical shaft, from the surface to the scenic chambers 190 feet below, so visitors could eventually descend by elevator in about 30 seconds (prior to the elevator the Park Service offered tours in the natural entrance vicinity, still the area for candlelight tours today.)
As early visitors stepped off the elevator, Jan and Herb were exploring remote sections of the cave to the southeast, through tight passages called Calorie Counter, Miseries and, tighter yet, Mini Miseries. In the era when Apollo astronauts stepped on the moon, the Conns also left footprints where no one had walked before. On December 4, 1973, they recorded the cave’s 50th mile — a mark deemed unthinkable a few years earlier.
“You don’t do it for the mileage,” said Jan. “And yet the mileage gets in your blood.” That’s especially true as a cave climbs onto the list of the world’s longest.
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| The Conns fell in love with each other and then with rock climbing. Photo by Paul Higbee. |
Now, almost two decades after the Conns turned the exploration over to others, the mileage continues to mount. There’s long been speculation that Jewel and Wind caves might be one and the same, but Jan and Herb couldn’t imagine spelunkers proving it so. Eight hours of rugged going from the elevator will take you two miles toward Wind Cave; that’s as far as Jewel’s been explored that direction. From that point, the nearest Wind Cave could be is about 20 miles (those 110 known miles don’t run anywhere near 20 miles in any one direction; they twist and double back to form a baffling maze).
Today visitors can take guided tours in the elevator vicinity, where there are electric lights and smooth walkways, or they can take the more rugged candlelight excursions. And for those small enough and physically fit enough, there are spelunking tours that let you feel like Jan and Herb for a few hours. Combined, these tours take visitors to only a tiny portion of this mostly wild cave.
Yet another way to experience Jewel Cave is by reading the Conns’ book, The Jewel Cave Adventure ñ Fifty Miles Of Discovery Under South Dakota, published in 1977 by the National Speleological Society. Filled with the excitement of discovery and lots of humor, the book even features a recipe for spelunkers’ bread, and cave songs Jan composed.
Once committed to a wayfaring lifestyle, the Conns seldom traveled in the years before Herb’s death in 2002. Jan and Herb said they’d cling to most any excuse to stay home, like deciding canned goods might freeze in their absence.
“Anyway,” said one visitor, “out here you’re living a life people dream of.”
“If they really dreamed it,” said Jan, “they’d be living it.”
Tubing Rocks
Looking for a unique activity this holiday season? Rock out on the slopes in Lead at Ski Mystic Deer Mountain‘s Zero Gravity Tube Park. You can tube under the stars on Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Local bands perform in the lodge and the music is pumped outdoors.
“We just wanted to created a venue with a lot of action,” says co-owner, Mark Brockman.”When you combine the thrill of tubing in the park at night with live music, it’s just awesome.” The cost is $25 or $20 with college ID. Tonight (Dec 22nd) features Letta People, the rock/blues band from Rapid City, and on the 29th you can hear Don’t Touch Me from Spearfish.
The Zero Gravity Tube Park is new this season. Tubing was always a popular attraction at Ski Mystic so Brockman and co-owner Alicia Salas decided to expand to what was formerly a beginner’s ski slope. “It’s probably one of the biggest [tube parks] in the country,” says Brockman.”We have a 1,000 foot tube lift with a 250 foot vertical drop.” The park is also open during normal ski hours from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And it’s family friendly — children ages three and up are welcome.
Grandpa The Bank Robber
I still chuckle about the family historian who wrote many years ago that her grandpa was a well-known fellow who died quite suddenly from a neck injury suffered from falling off a horse. It seemed he had just given a very short speech in the shade of a tree in the town square when the horse bolted.
The historian didn’t add the fact that her grandpa’s neck somehow became tangled in a rope that was tied to a tree branch.
But I shouldn’t be amused because the executed man was somebody’s grandpa. He must have done something bad. Maybe he stole a horse. But he probably did some kind deeds. If nothing else, he fathered a child who had a child who cared enough to try to whitewash his reputation.
I’m reminded of all this because our Nov/Dec issue featured a very popular article we called “Outlaws and Scofflaws of South Dakota.” I’ve always wanted to use the word Scofflaw on our our magazine cover, and finally after 27 years of publishing we found the opportunity.
The story has been a big hit with most readers, but we’ve heard from a few family historians who are not pleased that we presented great-uncles and grandmas in such a dark light. Just this morning I received a letter from a woman who wrote, “While I’ve become acccustomed to (name withheld) being portrayed in a negative light, he did a lot of positive things during his years in the Black Hills.”
Point made. Every South Dakotan — every man and woman who ever lived — is more complex than could ever be explained in a few paragraphs of a family history book or in our magazine. So enjoy reading about our outlaws and scofflaws, but let’s all remember that many of them were husbands and fathers and friends and neighbors, and that their good deeds might have more than compensated for the banks they robbed, the horses they stole or the worthless mines they sprinkled with gold dust.
How Palmer’s Gulch Raised a Professor
Ruth Ziolkowski once told our writer Paul Higbee that she doesn’t feel a need to travel outside the Black Hills because “anybody you could ever want to meet will eventually come here.”
The attraction of outsiders to our mountain valleys also explains how Watson Parker, a child of Hill City, became professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin. Watson is also the author of several books, including the hiker/cult classic “Black Hills Ghost Towns.” He is one of your very favorite South Dakotans, unless you don’t know him. And last but not least, he was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame a few weeks ago.
A few years ago, Watson explained to me why he aspired to a career in academia. “In the 1940s my family was running Palmer Gulch Lodge near Hill City,” he said. “We generally had a lot of vacationing professors from the University of Minnesota, so after-dinner converations on the terrace were learned and lively.
“Chief among the professors was Richard M. Elliot of the psychology department. My dad had known him at Dartmouth, where they were classmates. One evening when I was about 10 years of age, Dr. Elliot and a fellow academic were discussing Roman history. One of them quoted Cato the Elder as saying, ‘delando est Carthago,’ to which another raised an objection, insisting that he’d really said, “Carthaginem esse Delendam.’
“They began a spirited discussion in Latin and I listened with my ears wide open, and my mouth, too,” Watson said, “for there, in the heart of the Black Hills, a whole new vista of knowledge, learning and wisdom was opened for me.”
